A logical argument I've never heard argued

The most basic claim of at least most, if not all monotheist belief systems is that the deity that they worship 'always was', thereby avoiding the messy problem of 'who created the creator?'.
Well, if a creator has existed for an infinitely long time in the past (having never been created) should not anything He/She/It has done, such as creating mankind, happened an infinitely long time ago? Or are we to believe a deity existed an infinite amount of time before the idea of creating sentient beings finally occurred to Him/Her/It?

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Infinity is more of a mathematical or philosophical concept than a strictly scientific or empirical one. It's so foreign to our worldview that we can't properly conceive of it. Kind of a nice place for a beleaguered god to hunker down, yes?

If you try to use infinity in a common-sense way it gets funny : a god that exists for an infinite amount of time could never arrive at the present, because the amount of time he would have to wait to get at the present would be infinite. so a god who was always there, is nevertheless not here yet now.

Or, if the amount of time that god exists is infinite, then any portion of that time is also infinite, so the amount of time he spent before he created the world was infinite and therefor has not happened yet, and never will.

Except...well if their God exists in infinity then it must by definintion be existant for every moment of time, which includes now. Your statement is, of course, also utterly true though. :-)

Actually, if you use the infinite number of monkeys theory it could be argued that in an infinite amount of time everything must happen therefore both humanity created by God and humanity not created by God has happened/will happen (is happening concurrently if you bring in the multiverse) so we and theists are just arguing about which is happening right now and here.

Infinity does my head in. Religion is probably just a form of panadol for the intrinsic headache that comes with living in an infinite universe. Pity about the negative side effects.

That's what I said! And they were like, "Of course he could get to this point in time! He's god!" Of COURSE he could. Because he's GOD. THANKS for clearing that up. Must be nice being able to just wisk by paradoxes like that.

Well, the problem with that is the argument is hitting on their ground. And you know theists, their God has no bounds and crap... I'd suspect to never get a straight answer even if ever Theist banned together.... problem is this will not phase them one flick.

Your point is perfect... But the majority is too ignorant to see that.

Leaving aside the metaphysical problems of existing for an infinite time, what would happen to the mind of a self-concious entity existing alone for 'ever'? Or perhaps this expalins the madness inherent in monotheism....

Maybe this wasn't he/she/it's first time? Maybe we're just the latest in an infinitely long series of experimental configurations for sentient beings? I mean, just because something is omniscient and omnipotent, doesn't necessarily make it omnicompetent, right? :)

I agree with Stevie Hunter, it's one of those logical arguments that theists would just dismiss with their usual nonsense:Well, the problem with that is the argument is hitting on their ground. And you know theists, their God has no bounds and crap... I'd suspect to never get a straight answer even if ever Theist banned together.... problem is this will not phase them one flick.